March 10, 1792 - John Stuart, 3rd earl of Bute and advisor
to the British king, George III, died in London. Although most Americans had
never heard his name, Lord Bute played a significant role in the politics of
the British empire that spawned the American Revolution.

March 10, 1804 - In St. Louis, Missouri, a formal ceremony
was conducted to transfer ownership of the Louisiana Territory from France to
the United States.

March 10, 1848 - The U.S. Senate ratified the Treaty of
Guadalupe Hidalgo, ending the Mexican–American War.

March 10, 1849 - Abraham Lincoln applied for a patent for a
device to lift vessels over shoals by means of inflated cylinders.

March 10, 1864, President Abraham Lincoln signed a brief
document officially promoting then-Major General Ulysses S. Grant to the rank
of lieutenant general of the U.S. Army, tasking the future president with the
job of leading all Union troops against the Confederate Army.

March 10, 1865 – During the Civil War, a skirmish occurred
in the vicinity of Woodville Station, Ala.

March 10, 1865 - Confederate General William H. C. Whiting
died at age 40 in prison at Governors Island in New York from the wounds he had
suffered at during the fall of Fort Fisher, North Carolina.

March 10, 1876 – Alexander Graham Bell made the first
successful telephone call. He spoke to his assistant, electrical designer
Thomas Watson, who was in the next room. He said, “Mr. Watson — come here — I
want to see you.”

March 10, 1890 - Juliet Opie Hopkins died at the age of 71
in Washington, D.C. Hopkins served as the Superintendent of Civil War Hospitals
established in Richmond by the State of Alabama during the Civil War. She
became a Confederate heroine for her efforts and her portrait even appeared on
Alabama state bank notes during the Civil War years.

March 10, 1903 – Jazz cornetist Bix Beiderbecke was born in
Davenport, Iowa.

March 10, 1926 – The first Book-of-the-Month Club book,
“Lolly Willowes, or The Loving Huntsman” by Sylvia Townsend Warner, was
published.

March 10, 1930 – In Lovecraftian fiction, occultist John
Grimlan, who some assert was 300 years old, passed away in a small town just
outside San Francisco. He first appeared in 1937’s “Dig Me No Grave” by Robert
E. Howard.

March 10, 1940 – Playwright and novelist David Rabe was born
in Dubuque, Iowa.

March 10, 1941 - The Brooklyn Dodgers announced that their
players would begin wearing batting helmets during the 1941 season.

March 10, 1948 – Montgomery, Ala. native and icon of the
Jazz Age, Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald, the wife of F. Scott Fitzgerald, died at the
age of 47 in a hospital fire in Asheville, N.C.

March 10, 1948 – The City of Evergreen was featured as “One
of the State’s Finest Cities” in the Alabama Local Government Journal, a
bi-weekly newspaper published by the Alabama League of Municipalities.

March 10, 1965 – NFL Hall of Fame safety and cornerback Rod
Woodson was born in Fort Wayne, Indiana. He would go on to play for Purdue, the
Pittsburgh Steelers, the San Francisco 49ers, the Baltimore Ravens and the
Oakland Raiders.

March 10, 1969 – Army PFC Billy Wayne Pettis, 21, of
Castleberry, Ala. arrived in Vietnam. He would be killed in action 82 days later.

March 10, 1969 - James Earl Ray pled guilty in Memphis,
Tenn. to the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. Ray later repudiated the
guilty plea and maintained his innocence until his death in April 1998.

March 10, 1978 - CBS began airing the series "The
Incredible Hulk."

March 10, 1978 – Sparta Academy senior Gray Stevens played
on the South All-Star Team in the Alabama Private School Association’s All-Star
Boys Basketball Game at Fort Dale Academy in Greenville, Ala.

March 10, 1982 - Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Pluto
and Saturn were all on the same side of the Sun, within a 95 degree wide
interval. In 1974, authors John Gribbin and Stephen Plagemann published the
bestseller “The Jupiter Effect,” which wrongly predicted that this planetary
alignment would cause a number of catastrophes including a huge earthquake on
the San Andreas fault on March 10, 1982.

March 10, 1993 – Judge Sam Welch sentenced Wayne Holleman
Travis to death by electrocution for the murder of Clarene Haskew in December
1991. Travis was transferred immediately to Holman Prison in Atmore, Ala.

March 10, 1993 - Sherry Davis became the first woman to be
the public address voice of a major league team. She was the public address
announcer for the San Francisco Giants.

March 10, 2006 - The Cuban national baseball team played
Puerto Rico in the first round of the inaugural World Baseball Classic. While
the Puerto Rican team was made up of major league All-Stars, the Cuban team was
largely unknown to the world. Puerto Rico beat Cuba, 12-2.

March 10, 2009 - In Kinston, Ala., Michael McLendon began a
shooting rampage that continued onward into the Geneva County towns of Samson
and Geneva. Ten people were killed and six more were wounded before McLendon
committed suicide.